When the United States of America was founded we had two main political parties emerge, much as we have today. The anti-federalists, one of those original parties of American politics, would come to be known as the Democrat-Republicans based on their support of a strong republic consisting of independently governed states. How is that for irony? The Democrat-Republicans! The opposing party was referred to as the Federalists, whose name arose out of their idea of a strong federal government and national bank, among other platforms. So at the beginning we had a party who wanted to centralize power and money squaring off against a party who fiercely protected the ideas of checks and balances and state’s rights. Where are we now in comparison?
- The Symbol of a People United
What does it mean to be a modern-day Republican? Well, you might be a right-wing Christian. Certainly conventional wisdom tells us the Christians support the Republicans. You want to control what is taught in schools so that Darwin’s “theory” isn’t taken as fact. You also support the killing of Muslims with hardly a shred of justification since they aren’t Christian. While you tout the freedom you think you have, you certainly have no issue with the occupation of foreign countries at the whim of our leaders. You have the divine right to force a young girl to carry a rapist’s child. You could be a business man if you are a Republican. We all know that big-business and banking support the Republicans. You definitely believe in Reagan, trickle-down economics, lower taxes for the rich and a strong military. You fondly remember Nancy Reagan’s “Just say NO” campaign and support the war on drugs. Although the funny thing is that you did enough coke to kill a horse in college and you drink like a fish at your high-society parties. You are rich, you are white, you are probably male (unless you are an unenlightened or bible-blinded woman), quite possibly racist, and you don’t care about anyone but you and your family.
So what is left for the Democratic Party to claim? Let’s start with the really easy ones. Democrats are: gay, unionized, not-white, female, artistic, non-Christian, pot smokers, poor, environmentally sensitive or supportive of any other cause not based on the bible. You hate big business and think that someone ought to decide how much money is enough for any one person. Of course, your Hollywood buddies are on the fence about that one but you’ll give them a pass and only hate industry since the California rich tend to support things you like. You support killing a fetus so you don’t have to keep a condom in your wallet. You believe in redistributing wealth at the loss of liberty. You support hate-crime legislation, which devalues a life arbitrarily by race, creed, or some other characteristic. You probably were or are on welfare. You want to control education so that every single boy thinks about whether or not they are gay. Anything you have you haven’t earned but instead were given by government, luck, or inheritance. You are idealistic to the point of living in a dream world. You trust the government more than you trust your fellow-man or yourself. You were indoctrinated by a system of public education. You are a godless, easily coerced, black or Hispanic, probably female, dependent and maybe even handicapped citizen who wouldn’t stand a chance without the rich propping you up.
- Can you see the forest through the trees?
Welcome to how your party is portrayed by the other side's media machine. If you find either of these descriptions offensive, then why do you blindly believe political parties are good for us? Why do you want to be categorized? What forces these broad, crude, and unacceptable descriptions into being? How does it serve the parties to widen the gap between the parties? The more we centralize power in our government, the more we give influence to our political parties. These parties are no longer about serving any ideal or their members. They are about increasing their number of votes. Think about some of the ideas that have received bi-partisan support lately. The bank bailouts were created under a Republican administration (blatantly against the will of the people) and advanced beyond the financial industry by a Democrat administration. Both parties operated from the same point of view; screw the people by stealing their money and giving it to the corporations while increasing the amount of control enjoyed by the very same politicians writing the bill! How many people have to point out the sick and twisted relationship between the federal government, Goldman Sach’s, and the Federal Reserve? How is Obama any different from Bush when you look at his cabinet appointments such as Geithner? Consider the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Obama kept the same Secretary of Defense and didn’t really change anything significant from Bush’s plans. Although, we are hearing about a longer stay than we were originally told in both places, gee what a big surprise. How about detaining individuals against their constitutional rights? Seems to me Obama hasn’t done any better at protecting the rights of those detained without being charged or tried in a court, against a campaign promise I might add. So where do the parties differ? It seems to me they pretty much differ along the sort of lines I outlined earlier. Each party chooses a portion of the populace, alienates it from the alternative point of view, and claims the moral high ground in order to gain power through unification. This isn’t the kind of political organization I want to belong to.
How do we stop this labeling? How do we start to see each other as Americans; instead of Democrat or Republican, black or white, gay or straight, Christian or atheist? The first thing we need to do is stop giving away our powers of influence, opinion, commerce, and persuasion to the federal government. If we can roll back the powers that were usurped from us by our government we can begin to remove the power of influence by the parties. For example, if we were to return the responsibility of education to that of the community and the State, we could break the ties between Democrats and the teacher’s union. The more local your money stays, the less bureaucratic crap it has to pay for. Isn’t that simple? If you don’t have federal programs tying all of our teachers together, then you don’t need a nation-wide union fighting for them, do you? You are free to return to the days where you actually had influence at the local PTA meeting. Do they even have those anymore? What a novel idea, instead of teachers forming a union in order to collectively bargain with the government officials, you have teachers forming a partnership with the parents to fight with the local officials and institutions for what the children need. Now teachers are free to support either political party because their livelihood isn’t part of what they are voting for nationally. Now we can shed the label of Democrat or Republican while we support education. How much simpler is that? How much cheaper is that? The same principle applies to big-oil and the Republicans. Stop legislating so much and you break the ties that bind our government to organizations instead of citizens and the country's future health. When we weaken the government’s power over us, we will find that our communities will come together far easier. The more we allow our government to do, the more causes it will use to pit neighbor against neighbor, citizen against citizen. That is the secret the government is trying to keep from us. They know we are more powerful than they are. We are herded according to our political beliefs which derive from powers stolen from us. If we are to return to a free society, a productive society, indeed a prosperous society; we must remember true power comes from within ourselves and our communities, not a federal government addicted to our money and power.
- The Truth About Our System
No longer do we have a party fighting for state’s rights against a party supporting centralized power. The very idea that there is a limit to federal power is only raised when one party is trying to stop the other such as the case with the health care bill. No longer do we have a choice that offers something besides funneling tax dollars through Washington at the expense of both a truly representative government and anything resembling efficiency. No longer is there anyone reminding voters about the rights they give up each time Congress produces another piece of legislation. No longer is there a party for the people and I mean ALL the people. If there is no longer a party for the people, how can there be a government for the people?
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